1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of information technology and electronic data presentation and more particularly to methods and systems for navigating and accessing data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Computer systems typically provide users with access to a wide variety of digital information and services. For example, desktop computer systems usually provide a wide variety of applications along with Internet access. In addition, desktop computer systems commonly provide powerful processing and memory resources and graphics capabilities. A typical desktop computer system includes a large display and a box or tower that houses resources such as processors, memory, and mass storage, etc. Such a desktop computer system may also include a variety of peripheral devices such as printers, scanners, and devices to communicate with a user, such as a keyboard and a pointing tool, such as a mouse. In additional to the common desktop computer system, computer systems also include, for example, laptops, personal digital assistants, main frame computers and notebook computers.
Data is often presented to a user on a computer in a list format but more often is presented in a table format that comprises rows and columns of data. Examples of typical programs utilizing the table format for displaying data include, for example, spreadsheet programs, database programs and word processing programs. Tables are also extensively used in providing information on a Web page by downloading the information from an Internet or intranet site to a browser with instructions to display the data in table format.
With the increasing popularity of the Internet, HTML documents or files are a popular and internationally accepted format for sharing data “on-line.” An on-line information system typically includes a server computer system that makes information available so that client computer systems can access the information. The server and client computer systems are usually connected in either a local area or a wide area private Intranet system, or via the public Internet. A unique uniform resource locator (URL) is associated with each HTML document, enabling the client computer systems to request a specific HTML document from a server computer system.
An HTML document includes a hierarchical set of markup elements. Most elements have a start tag, followed by content, followed by an end tag. The content is typically a combination of text and nested markup elements. Tags, which are enclosed in angle brackets (‘<’ and ‘>’), indicate how the document is structured and how to display the document, i.e., its format. There are tags for markup elements such as titles and headers, for text attributes such as bold and italic, for lists and for tables.
As noted above, a user who wishes to retrieve and display an HTML document generally uses a Web browser program. Two of the popular Web browser programs are MOZILLA FIREFOX from the Mozilla Foundation of Mountain View, Calif., and INTERNET EXPLORER from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. The primary functionality of web browsers is directed to finding, retrieving, and displaying documents. A browser is generally not intended for word processing or data manipulation of the information contained within an HTML document, but can display documents or data generated by word processing or spreadsheet applications, once converted into an appropriate HTML compatible format.
A wide variety of data may be shared among different users in a network environment using HTML. Typical HTML documents include images, text, tables and data. As is well known, an HTML table consists of headers, rows and columns. A column represents a type of data. A header is used to display a proper name for each column. A row is a set of data that consists of one datum from each column.
Tables can be quite large, whether they appear in spreadsheet or database programs or as tables that are read by a browser and downloaded from the Internet or an intranet as an HTML or other suitable format document. Often, when the table cannot fit onto the display screen of a user, the user may navigate through the table by, for example, paging through the table and/or scrolling through the table as known to those having ordinary skill in the art. Such scrolling can be tedious, time-consuming and frustrating, potentially causing the user to lose orientation in the table. Improved displaying, viewing and navigating systems and methods would be desirable, particularly for data displayed and accessed from a regimented format.